Commentary « BartBlog

July 10, 2015

On the Road to literary fame and fortune?

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Dorothea Lange, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack London, Mike Zint — Bob Patterson @ 12:28 pm

What would happen if a group of homeless political activists in Berkeley offered an opportunity for a young journalist to score a scoop and a chance for a career making project? Since a good many energetic authors have endured the rigors of life on the road to write about their experiences, and since Berkeley is considering a list of proposed ordinances that will make being homeless more challenging, Mike Zint, the political activist leading the effort to prevent the historic Berkeley Post Office building from being sold, has issued a challenge to journalists covering the resurgent political scene in the famed University town. He calls it the George Orwell do-it-yourself scholarship program.

Writers ranging from the eager staff of the Daily Californian to contributing writers for various publications, and perhaps even a staff writer for the New York Times are being urged to vie for the privilege of spending a week (or month?) with the 24/7 protest at the city’s main Post Office branch and experience what life without money, regularly scheduled meals or time clocks means.

If a young writer shows up with no money, no ID, and no credit cards and is willing to spend a week (month?) living on the streets gathering material for a writing project, there is no guarantee that the work will sell, but the rookie scribe will be granted membership in a rather exclusive group. The Berkeley chapter of the fraternity of the open road school of journalism has an impressive roster.

Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote “Travels with a donkey,” and “An Inland Voyage” had a home that is now a California State Park just north of Calistoga.

Dorothea Lange was a photographer who roamed the country taking photos that provided classic images showing the desperate plight of the poor during the Great Depression. She lived in Berkeley CA.

Jack Kerouac made being a bi-coast schizophrenic the basis for the beatnik literary movement by repeatedly bouncing from the Big Apple to Frisco and back again and again and writing about it in various books. He was briefly a Berkeley resident.

Hunter Stockton Thompson rode with the Oakland chapter of the Hell’s Angeles Motorcycle Club and the subsequent book mad him a journalism super-star. He lived, for a while, in San Francisco.

Blogger, former war correspondent, and (more recently) occasional baby sitter, Jane Stillwater, who has circled the glob gathering interesting information and facts, has interrupted her peripatetic fact checking activities and is currently ensconced in Berkeley and is putting the finishing touches on her first novel tentatively titled “Pictures of a Future World.”

Sure, married people can write charming books about domestic bliss but even the lady from Scranton Pa., who wrote “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” didn’t stay there.

George Orwell’s first book “Down and Out in Paris and London” never lived in Berkeley but his first book helped establish him as a celebrity writer. The fact that his book about hard times sold well during the depression should provide some incentive for today’s white belt (i.e. beginner) writer to “walk a mile in Orwell’s moccasins.”

If writers can’t get an assignment from the mainstream media to cover the tumultuous atmosphere on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley it might indicate that the publishers (who are usually conservatives) are more into denial than willing to subsidizing a sojourn into the fascinating world of life on the edge.

If a bold and audacious writer decides to take the challenge, and doesn’t get any response to his work done on speculation, that might be proof that capitalists are practicing de facto censorship in a country that has been conditioned to be oblivious to any limits on freedom of speech imposed by financial considerations. Would capitalistic publishers institute de facto censorship based on misguided fanatical beliefs if it deprived them of a traditional source for sure sales? In the capitalists’ world, doesn’t greed trumps political principles every time?

If such hypothetical self imposed limitations were in effect, wouldn’t the discipline required to resist the urge to break the embargo ultimately fail due to greed fostered by the potential of impressive sales numbers? Hasn’t the life of a vagabond wordsmith been the basis for many literary careers? Publishers may be able to control what is available to buy in America’s bookstores, but they can’t stop people from follow sales trends that have been effective for many generations.

The danger for the capitalistic conservative moguls would be that some desperate graduate of a journalism school, who is being overwhelmed by student debt, cites the WTF factor and puts his world on the line and risks everything on a bold gamble. That makes very interesting reading for those who want to live an exciting life vicariously.

What beleaguered dad doesn’t retreat to his “man cave” and yearn for a proxy who will deliver the life of a happy go lucky, eloquent rolling stone in the pages of a new best seller?

With all the time spent on talk radio decrying the existence of panhandlers in the land of opportunity, there is one glaring factor: when is the last time a conservative talk show host interviewed a homeless person on the air? If the unemployed are not given an opportunity to express their point of view, how then does a one-sided point of view program exemplify a dedication to “fair and balanced” content?

Dirty diapers, puking babies, and Sunday morning sermons may add a comforting predictability to life and adds a shared experience bond to community living but the uncertainty of hitchhiking in the rain on a desolate highway intersection at night does not need to be concerned about being too mundane to hold the audience’s interest. The song “Phantom 309” describes the dismal experience of hitchhiking at night on a remote stretch of highway as a rain storm approaches. For families in fly-over country that song is a “Twilight Zone” episode told in lyrics and is very entertaining, but for someone who has experienced the vagabond lifestyle it provides a “been there done that” moment that rings true for many a wandering wordsmith.

(If the writer’s reaction to the plight is to utter a blasphemy and if it is immediately followed by a dramatic lightening bolt striking the peak of a mountain top about five miles yonder, that will probably be an “ace of trump” incident at a hostel story telling competition.)

The World’s Laziest Journalist has lived the hitchhiking to Frisco chapter of “On the Road” almost five decades ago and has concluded that it is better to interview the regulars at ‘Fort Zint” (the Berkeley Post Office Defense Protest) and get a vicarious look at the challenges they face rather than adopting the young writer’s sense of adventure and putting a major commitment of time and energy into a project that would be done on speculation.

At this stage of the game what would be the use of putting a great deal of time and effort into laying the foundation for a writing career that will stretch thirty years into the future?

We either do something for the S&G factor or we give it an immediate “pass.” That isn’t to say that we would turn down a spur of the moment offer of a ride to NYC – the travel bag is always packed – but road adventures are a young man’s game and, according to Mike Zint’s ground rules wouldn’t getting a monthly social security check take away the risk factor of being broke and on the move?

In “the Road,” former University of California at Berkeley student Jack London wrote: “I located and empty box-car, slid open the slide-door, and climbed in.”

Now the disk jockey will play Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s 1956 hit “Ain’t got no home,” the Eagles’ “Take it easy,” and the Highwaymen’s “The Road goes on forever, the party never ends.” We have to check Craig’s list and see about the possibility of getting a ride to the Big Apple. Have a “never saw a sight that didn’t look better looking back” type week.

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July 2, 2015

Punditry follies

Filed under: Commentary — Bob Patterson @ 12:34 pm

In a university town that is home for a renowned school of journalism, where the Center for Investigative Reporting (this just in: It has relocated to Emeryville) is located, and where great news reporters have taught, it would be very ironic for good journalism to go missing in action, but that seemed to be the case this week in Berkeley.

At a city council meeting this week, witnesses report that a uproar occurred when a member of the city council attempted to get a vote on new wording for some new laws regarding the homeless without any public input. The measure was tabled after it was pointed out by other members of the city council that the change in procedures would be illegal, according to one source.

Allegations that an extensive cover-up to mask the details of the events that lead to the Berkeley Balcony Disaster is being implemented, should be sufficient motivation for some of America’s top level journalists to come to Berkeley and then either substantiate the rumors or refute them completely.

If the city that was home to both the Berkeley Barb and the Berkeley Tribe can now stifle rumors of malfeasance, then perhaps the dire prognosis that Democracy in the USA is rapidly approaching “flat line” status is spot-on.

The world’s laziest journalist had been tipped to the historic potential of this week’s city council meeting by Mike Zint, who is the fellow responsible for the “First they came for the homeless” page on Facebook (among other political activist accomplishments).

We attended the rally that was held before the meeting began, but the time when we could work a full day, attend a city council meeting (back in the day when Culver City held the council meetings in the firehouse/city hall building) that evening, then go back to the office and type out a report before ringing out for the day was several decades ago. We left the scene before the newsworthy aspect of the night began to unfold.

According to an article in the New York Times, statistically speaking a shortstop’s best year usually occurs when he is 28 years old. Could the same principle apply to a columnist’s performance level?

We have heard that waiting until late in the meeting to bring up important issues is a favorite tactic in Berkeley but we were unprepared to reactivate the old college “pull an all-nighter” methodology of coping with the challenge.

If the New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine, and Sixty Minutes don’t have the resources (or motivation?) to cover the recent events in Berkeley, should local activists try to pitch the idea to Paris Match, Der Speigel, or Pravda?

Recently we acquired a DVD copy of the movie “Rum Diary,” and were thrilled to see again the “Ink and Rage” sequence where the writer warns the bad guys that he does not have their best interests as his chief motivating factor in life.

We have, in the past, written a column detailing the fact that the portable typewriter used by the leading character during his soliloquy was one of our personal possessions before it turned up on the set in Hollywood and thereby made the “wannabe” aspect of the sequence particularly noticeable.

At this stage in our life, the world’s laziest journalist would greatly prefer to abandon all reasonable expectations of following the Hunter S. Thompson strategy to achieve fame and fortune and, instead, just coast from one enjoyable feature story to another.

In a course at Santa Monica College, we learned that writing a solid magazine article takes about a month of work. Putting that much time and effort into a weekly column (or even a series of weekly columns) is way above our pay grade.

Rather than do the heavy lifting to find out the specific details of the (alleged) shenanigans in Berkeley, we would rather concentrate on some innocuous bits of frivolous information that might make our readers smile and not try to inspiring them to change their vote in the 2016 Presidential Election.

If, however, one of our regular readers just happens to know a writer or assignment editor for a very influential member of the mainstream media, and sends them a link to this lament, we would not be adverse to playing a catalyst role in causing a chain of events which brings the focus of national attention to some of the hidden aspects of life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We intend on seeing two movies this weekend. A restored version of “The Third Man” will be playing in Berkeley and word of mouth indicates that seeing “Ted 2” might be good for some laughs.

After a respite of a long holiday weekend, perhaps we will be inspired to take a 75^th anniversary look at the beginning state of the Battle of Britain, some events to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Berkeley Barb, and/or . . . a gonzo style look at the next Berkeley City Council meeting?

To be continued . . .

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June 19, 2015

Accusations, finger pointing, and denial in Berkeley

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Jean Genet, lawsuits, mainstream media — Bob Patterson @ 12:27 pm

Flipping on the radio to catch the start of CBS news radio’s World News Roundup and hearing that the lead story about a fatal accident that happened about a mile away was very disconcerting. The report informed listeners about the deaths of several college students, visiting the USA from Ireland. They had been killed when an apartment house balcony collapsed and spilled them onto the sidewalk five stories down.

The exact location of the tragedy “in downtown Berkeley,” was not reported nor was it clear when precisely the event had occurred. We barged into a neighbor’s pad and when we saw the first live coverage it still wasn’t clear where the tragedy had occurred. A tight close up of the dangling shards of balcony didn’t give us a clear idea of exactly where the deaths had actually happened.

We went downtown and saw that the tragedy occurred just west of the Berkeley Public Library’s main branch on Kittredge Street.

We took a few photos of the site and then after doing some photo editing work back at the World’s Laziest Journalist home office, we sent two photos to the BBC. After sending those images we noticed that the BBC website had a tight aerial view of the balcony.

When some workers were lifted on a crane to get a close look at the damage, in the afternoon, we walked to a good vantage point and started taking photos. A meter maid challenged our credentials for covering a news event. (It is likely that one of our photos moved on the AP wire before he mother was born.)

We had to ask a police officer when the Berkeley PD had received the call to get an approximation of when the collapse had occurred. “Early this morning” does describe 12:42 a.m. but just not with complete accuracy.

Tuesday, KCBS was reporting late in the day, that evidence of “dry rot” had been detected in the balcony support. In Berkeley, the allegation was being made that the company that built the offending apartment house complex was proceeding rapidly with a new development in the downtown area. If true that will mean that hearings and lawsuits will prolong the scheduling of the new project and that local journalists will be covering the long term effects of the balcony collapse for years to come. Who doesn’t love the idea of spending the summer fact checking the construction of a ten year old apartment house?

In San Francisco Chronicle for Wednesday June 17, 2015, the lead article was reporting “it appeared rainwater had penetrated the balcony’s wood structure, causing dry rot that weakened it.” The blame game with accusations and denials was on.

By Wednesday afternoon, KCBS was reporting that students who lived in the building were expressing negativity about the building itself.

Isn’t it obvious that if the building is going to symbolize American greed and political corruption and become a destination for pilgrims from Ireland, then it will have to be demolished?

Americans can (if they choose) remain blissfully unaware of anti-American sentiment in foreign publications but red blooded patriotic Americans will not tolerate the existence of a building that critics say exemplifies greed and cold-hearted cost-cutting calculations in a country that personifies the concept of “the good guys who wear the white hats.”

On Thursday, June 18, 2015, the San Francisco Chronicle’s top story, written by Jaxon Van Derbeken, carried the subhead “Firm has paid millions to settle wood-rot cases.”

Will conservatives assert that assessing the quality of material used in completed real estate projects is unnecessary government meddling? However negligence that results in deaths can become a criminal matter.

If the apartment house building becomes a folk symbol of American greed and political corruption, will the conservative talk show hosts keep the topic alive as a way of embarrassing President Obama? Will nostalgia for the days when America was respected and revered become a theme for the Republican Party’s nominee to become President in the 2016 election?

The mainstream media in the USA was switching its focus from Berkeley to gun control as the weekend approached but the media in the Berkeley area remained concentrated on the details of the construction of the balcony and the tragedy. People outside the area will find extensive coverage of the latest developments on both the Berkeleyside (dot com) and Berkeleydailyplanet (dot com) websites.

By the end of next week, journalists and pundits will be trying to make cogent remarks about the latest Supreme Court decisions. Few predictions about how a Supreme Court with a conservative Christian majority will rule on an issue they consider an abomination against nature, so it seems that it might be time to round up the usual clichés about “no one saw this coming” no matter which of the binary choices is the end result.

Is the principle “we report; you decide” a bit disingenuous because a reporter who covers a story for years will have a much better ability to see the most likely course of action rather than would a reader who is new to the topic? “We distort so that you can jump to an erroneous conclusion” sounds more like capitalism in action, eh?

Do reporters who cover Hollywood do better at predicting Oscar winners than do members of the movie going public?

What decision about the abomination against nature do you expect?

Various news stories will compete to become the iconic event that will always symbolize the summer of 2015 in the collective consciousness, but for the country of Ireland and the City of Berkeley CA, it seems that nothing else will eclipse this week’s tragedy.

The world’s laziest journalist would strongly prefer to write snarky columns about futile searches for prison escapees, various Supreme Court decisions, and futile efforts to recruit solders to be trained in Iraq rather than cover a very sad local angle to something that comes close to qualifying as a shameful international incident. Updates will be included in future columns as warranted by developments.

Jean Genet’s play, “The Balcony,” contains this week’s closing quote: “Would it perturb you to see things as they are?”

Now the disk jockey will play Elton John’s “Candle in the wind,” the Cranberries’ “I can’t be there” and U2’s song “Sunday bloody Sunday.” We have to go get our Irish up regarding finding out what political election campaign donations may have been made by a notorious construction company. Have a “may the wind be always at your back” type week.

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June 12, 2015

Let it all hang out!

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Anker Frankoni, Baron Siegfried L. von Richthofen, Jim Backus, the Hombres — Bob Patterson @ 12:33 pm

“The Mexican Eskimo,” by Anker Frankoni, tells the story of a fellow who goes from Alaska to Mexico on a Carlos Castaneda type quest seeking the meaning of life. The author is traveling about the USA in a vintage motor home in “mint” condition trying to promote the first installment of what is planned to be a trilogy of novels. He immediately caught our eye as the Bay Book Festival began last weekend. He immediately made us pea green with envy. We suggested that while he was in the San Francisco Bay area he should contact the management at the Beat Museum and try to get a speaking gig at the North Beach tourist destination that is receptive to writers with the potential concomitant with a modern beatnik on a Man of La Mancha style mission. We made that suggestion even before we leaned that Anker’s plan is to raise his thee kids, send them to college and then, if all goes according to his plan, he will go and die in the same exact spot where Neil Cassidy’s life ended.

If a reader took four different fresh in the box jigsaw puzzles, opened them up and then dumped the pieces together in one gigantic pile; that would provide an excellent metaphor for the challenge of covering last weekend’s events in the San Francisco Bay Area. On the Friday night before the event began, we went to Oakland to cover the latest installment of the Mayor Libby Schaaf vs. the freedom of speech advocates. We were in the wrong place and missed seeing the standoff and the arrests that occurred. After we called it quits and headed back to Berkeley, while traveling on the AC bus we noticed a large amount of police activity on Telegraph Ave near the UCB campus. The next day an officer involved shooting in Oakland revived the FTP protesters ire and added a baffling fatality to this year’s total number of people killed in the USA by police activity.

Initial attempts to learn the details of what had happened in Berkeley on Friday night were unsuccessful. The explanation detailing why the suspect in Oakland was killed were murky and raised more new questions than were answered by the official account of what had happened and why. Information found on line Saturday evening indicated that a spontaneous “Black Lives Matter” Protest/demonstration earned a high likelihood rating.

Since, in the past, we had known a Husky/German Shepherd mix dog who struggled with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence due to a fondness for daemon rum, we noted that our encounter with Animal Chaplain Rev. Nancy Schuntz would provide us with an item for our column but was way to late to provide us and Baron Siegfried L. von Richthofen with a pragmatic reward for the meeting.

Now that Americans’ faith in the reliability factor for Journalism produced by the News Industry in the USA has fallen to an abysmally low level, the market for books from non traditional authors seems to be increasing exponentially.

During the week, a source in the political activist fraternity informed us that the demonstrators who were arrested last Friday night in Oakland and expected to be charged with “failure to disperse,” were caught unaware when they were charged with resisting arrest and given a bail fee of $10,000.

Meanwhile the narrative for the police involved shooting indicated that the dead suspect had been involved in a robbery in San Francisco and was known to have a gun with a large capacity magazine with him in the car. When officers attempted to communicate with the fellow who had “passed out” and the suspect did not respond, the police officers broke several windows. The fellow came awake and was perceived to be doing something that caused the police to fear for not only their lives but also the lives of citizens in the immediate vicinity.

A “slim Jim” is a long thin piece of metal used by car thieves and locksmiths to gain quick access to the interior of an automobile and should not to be confused with a snack with the same name. We were baffled by the fact that the police resorted to an hour-long effort that involved breaking more than one window to deliver access to the suspect inside the car rather than using the quick and (relatively) silent strategy of using a Slim Jim

The Caitlin Jenner summer may be remembered as the time when Democrats embraced the Bush war philosophy and strategy regarding Iraq, and when the “Bush knew” folks can finally reverted to the “if you can’t beat them; join them” school of philosophy. This time both parties can be enthusiastic about sending “military advisors” to Iraq.

Another story developing this summer will be the fad for crowd-funding for the well-to-do. We heard one report (on KCBS?) that informed the audience that the musical group “Ohio Players” was appealing to fans for money to pay for the necessary expenses for recording their next album. Times are tough and people are being asked to donate money to a musical group that failed to set aside some of their past profits to subsidize future endeavors? Is a retelling the Horatio Alger success of a self made fortune story necessary or has American society embraced the concept that they are meant to play the doormat role for the “haves”?

Was Denny Hastert paying hush money at the same time he was urging no mercy for Bill Clinton’s assertion “I did not have sex with that woman!”? If so, will he be eligible for induction into the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame? What can Liberals learn from the fact that Hastert is being accused of misconduct with male minors and Bill’s indiscretions involved a young lady who was an adult?

Conservatives have reverted to a Seventies M; O. (modus operandi) because they have reverted to the habit of calling Jerry Brown “governor moonbeam.”

How ominous is it to learn that a gag order is in place regarding the contents of the TPP trade bill in Congress? How many voters would endorse the concept of signing a blank check as a way of lending a pal “some” money?

This week comedian Jerry Seinfeld was making waves by ridiculing political correctness as a way to censor political commentary and comedy.

Years from now when books are being written about the historic summer of 2015 if all the raw material available is material from conservative talk show radio, conservative owned print and TV shows, records from the conservative majority United States Supreme Court, the Republican majority House and Senate, and the memoirs of prominent Republicans, does that mean that the Democratic Party will always be portrayed as an amalgamation of pathetic losers? If that is how books in the future will be written, why then should a pundit grind out alternative analysis for altruistic reasons?

Meanwhile book festivals are chock full of chances to read about how the authors coped with the question: “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

If Americans are subjected to a 24/7 bombardment from the conservatively owned media detailing how, on Obama’s watch, things have become an unrelenting series of disasters, the exercise in group-think could backfire. If people are given a constant assertion that the war in Iraq is endless, the Pacific Ocean is being contaminated by radio active material from Fukushima, the ice caps are melting, and never given a chance to be amused and uplifted by some innocuous entertainment on Top 40 radio stations; eventually won’t the citizens have a collective realization that it is time to say “Fuck it!” and start a “the condemned man ate a hearty meal” program of continuous bacchanals and orgies?

This summer Americans will learn if “Jade Helm” is a preposterous conspiracy theory or an accurate prediction of an ominous development in a shift to fascism. Americans will get news of Jade Helm if (and only if) the news media remembers to ask “may I?” before writing any stories (pro-government propaganda?) about whatever happens.

Coincidentally the World’s Laziest Journalist recently stumbled upon the best answer, to the meaning of life question, which is also an invitation to back a “the party never ends” reaction to the avalanche of negativism.. It is in the “deleted scenes” section of the DVD for “Pirate Radio.” There is one labeled “the Meaning of Life.” Click it and watch that scene. It is available on Youtube and is recommended for those who want the answer provided quickly and for free online.

The closing quote is an axiom from the Sixties: “If you haven’t tried it; don’t knock it.”

Now the disk jockey will play Paul Revere and the Raiders’ song “Kicks,” the Hombres “Let it all hang out,” and “Delicious” by Jim Backus and friend. We have to go put some dead flowers on Siggy’s grave. Have a “party at the A-Frame” type week.

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June 5, 2015

“Get the card!”

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: pizza, politics, Pot, PTSD — Bob Patterson @ 12:25 pm

“Smoke,” by Hollywood actress Meili Cady, tells the story of a young lady who had some success in Hollywood as an actress and subsequentially got accused of smuggling seven tons of pot into the USA. This new book came to our attention right after we viewed “The Big High” 1968 episode of Dragnet and a colorized version of “Reefer Madness.” On Thursday May 28, we heard one of the Getty and Armstrong (which one is Costello, which one is Laurel?) duo did a segment which urged American military veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to “get the card,” which is to say they should do the paper work that would give them access to medical marijuana rather than seek relief via consuming alcoholic drinks. We knew that it was time to do another column on a topic that permits us to use the old cliché: “we don’t have a dog in that fight.” Th

e World’s Laziest Journalist doss not care if Pot is classified as a capital offense or if it becomes a product available in (irony alert!) drug stores and/or is sold at the corner news stand (do they still exist?).

Doing fact checking to see why the boys at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory voted the rumors surrounding the reason why pot was original classified as a dangerous narcotic as an explanation of why pot was voted into the Conspiracy Theory Hall of Fame (located on the super-secret campus somewhere in the Sierra foothills, near Berkeley) was a myth of Sisyphus assignment.

Back when “Reefer Madness” was a sensationalistic new movie it helped (propaganda alert?) convince the public that one puff for pleasure could lead, inexorably, to a life as a demented dope fiend. The 1968“Big High” episode of Dragnet (it’s available for viewing on Youtube), seconded the motion.

Could it be that capitalists, allegedly from both the booze and paper industries, as a way of diminishing a threat of competition, somehow (bribe alert?) convinced politicians to overreact and blacklisted a product with medicinal effects that would be very therapeutic for G. I.’s with battle fatigue? If so, why then would altruistic minded Republican politicians continue their misguided efforts after the doctors presented them with documentation that strongly endorsed the controversial PTSD treatment?

We considered doing a column detailing how, today, the voters in the USA seem to be as much the victims of lies, distortion, and propaganda as were the citizens of Germany, in the Thirties. Ein Volk got all their news only from officially sanction sources of information such as the Volkisher Brobachter newspaper. Is Fox News following in that tradition?

Denny Hastert did something and made mistakes in withdrawing the hush money from his bank account. Republicans want to go on record as saying the persecution of Hastert is an example of government overreach and not worth the effort and concomitant media circus. When Bill Clinton got a blowjob from a consenting adult woman, it was a basis for a group with lynch mob mentality to urge that impeachment proceedings should begin immediately. What’s not to love about strong, opposing partisanship reactions to the two stories?

Last December, when some of the citizens staged some “Black Lives Matter” protests in Berkeley, a low-flying single engine airplane was pointed out to us and the assertion was made that it was intercepting and monitoring cell phone calls being made below them as a way to do crowd control. During this past week, Newsweek provided confirmation of those rumors. Do a Google News search for “Operation Stingray.”

We were also tipped to the assertion that a rich pair of brothers bankrolled an effort to discredit the “Black Lives Matter” political protests by paying thugs to commit vandalism and to incite violence. Then when it was time for the hooligans to collect the promised cash, they were stiffed. That allegedly precipitated new riots with a more pragmatic rationale. That topic was accessible via a Google News search, but perhaps all traces of that story have been scrubbed off the Internet by now.

If true, this hypothesis has some very disconcerting implications. If hoodlums were paid to add vandalism and violence to a legitimate free speech protest, then one must make one of two conclusions. If the American Homeland Security agency was fully informed and complicit with what was happening, then fascism and Gestapo tactics have become an ingredient in American life. If, on the other hand, the Homeland Security did not know ahead of time about the payments to aggravate the situation, then their reasons for surveillance of all American citizens is a farce. They were either complicit or derelict in their mission if some of the protesters were paid agent provocateurs. With that ominous binary choice, it becomes evident why management of the news might be an integral part of the charade.

These days all the news seems to have a conspiracy theory aspect to it. Have you heard the assertion that B. B. King might have been the victim of foul play?

The latest hacking scandal causes us to ask again: “Why didn’t the system that was hacked use the security program that makes the electronic voting machines immune from all attempts to get hacked?

The hot rumor making the rounds this week on the digital counter-culture websites is that the John Kerry broken leg story was not a bike accident but was a fib designed to draw attention away from an assassination attempt by Isis.

Does the slump in confidence in American Journalism imply a concomitant spike in credibility for various and sundry Conspiracy Theories?

Speaking of de facto censorship, is it true that the website RevolutionbooksNYC dot org is promoting the use of a graphic symbol illustrating the concept that citizens should fear the police assigned to protect and serve them? Will media owned by conservative millionaires permit the staff to give any publicity to that concept?

The World’s Laziest Journalist will skip this week’s transvestite story. (Is that story that most folks, even those in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area, find boring and thus want it banished from the airwaves, an example of managed news?) Are any American pundits asking if the failure of the TSA screenings indicates that the actual purpose of the hassle is to wean Americans on to fascism?

Since Saturday June 6 will be the 71^st anniversary of D-Day, we need to ask a question: “If the soldiers who were killed in WWII were fighting for The Four Freedoms, does it show disrespect for their sacrifices if Sen. Lindsey Graham rolls his eyes when the concept of fighting for America’s liberties, is mentioned?”

[Note from the photo editor: Pot, pizza and psychedelic tie-die t-shirts can always be lumped together in the San Francisco Bay Area and hence legitimize this week’s photo illustration.]

Some analysts are baffled by the fact that Republicans, who were very enthusiastic about invading Iraq and Afghanistan, seem willing to renege on their promise to take care of wounded veterans by denying them access to medical marijuana to treat PTSD.

Since many pundits ignore the controversy over the use of pot treatment, any suggestion which attempts to explain why the Republicans continue to endorse the restrictions on the use of cannabis sativa rather than approve its use, we will (speculation alert!) offer our unique explanation.

The fable of the scorpion and the frog was used in two movies. It was told in Orson Welles’ “Mr. Arkadin,” and also in “The Crying Game.”

A scorpion wanted to cross a river. He asked a frog if he could hitch a ride. The frog vehemently objected saying: “When we get in the middle of the river, you will sting me and we will both drown.” The scorpion used his highly developed debating skill to convince the frog to ignore his objections to the proposal. The scorpion hopped on the frog’s back and they began to cross the river. When they got to the middle of the river, sure enough, the scorpion stung the frog. The perplexed frog asked the scorpion why he had broken his promise and thereby signed both of their death warrants. The scorpion’s response possibly explains the Republicans’ attitude and provides us with the column’s closing quote: “Because it’s in my nature!”

Now the disk jockey will play the Platters 1958 hit “Smoke gets in your eyes,” “Puff the magic dragon,” and Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson’s new song “It’s all going to pot.” We have to go see if the film rights to the “Smoke” book have been sold. Have a “Go Warriors!” type of week.

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May 29, 2015

Bring on: “The Senator Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly show!”?

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Al Franken, bill o'reilly, Hugh Hefner, Playboy after Dark — Bob Patterson @ 1:33 pm

The summer of 2015 is notable for the game of musical chairs being played by the late night talks show hosts and since the lowest common denominator standards of excellence have precipitated an avalanche of pabulum flavored entertainment, perhaps it is time to beg Huge Hefner to bankroll a return to intelligent, thought-provoking, and civilized debate to counteract the tsunami of crap that is comprised of an infinite number of cloned talk shows that deliver results that remind some critics of an unattended kindergarten class on speed.

The first objection would be that appealing to a limited number of intellectuals might not attract the proper audience numbers to sanction the effort. Bullshit! If America is ready to endorse the idea that quality no longer trumps quantity, then why not let the screaming matches interrupted by crepitating and belching get some high-brow competition just for the S&G (Snide and Galling?) factor?

If cable TV networks can subsidize fictional TV series, why can’t they get their own talk shows? If “Mad Men” can exist without a home on the big networks, why can’t a talk show do the same? Wouldn’t most cable channels be willing to discuss the possibilities with Mr. Hefner?

Episodes of Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person,” such as the interview with Marlon Brando which started with a racist joke, are still drawing fresh viewers on youtube. Intrinsic quality can refute the short shelf life or grown stale argument.

Where the hell, in the talk show jungle, does a person go to see and evaluate new talent attempting to make a dent in the pop culture? [An internet acquaintance from Australia introduced us to the term/concept “Cultural Imperialism.”]

The trend to use talk show appearances to promote items such as a new album, book, or film has reduced the content to the level of a huckster’s sales pitch. The content of these sales pitches can accurately be called “promobabble.”

According to some experts the Tonight Show in the Jack Paar era fostered quality story telling. The need to go to a commercial break causes the (new word alert?) bumperstickerization of all topics. (For an example of a non-traditional talk show guest readers are encouraged to watch the film “American Splendor.”)

If, for example, some of Hugh Hefner’s picks for future stardom are given the chance to exhibit their inherent charm, then perhaps fame and fortune will arrive at their doorstep earlier than expected.

If some of Hugh Hefner’s long time friends are on a new season of “Playboy after Dark,” it would be interesting to see and hear them get the chance to tell some stories and anecdotes that last longer than can be successfully told in a three minute segment.

So what, if a review of “King Matt the First,” by Janusz Korczak (translated from the Polish by Richard Lourie) sounds a bit too arcane and esoteric? What parent doesn’t want to learn of he existence of a marvelous children’s book from 1920 that still appeals to adults? Even better if it raises unique topics such as “must children submit to kisses from adults approved by the parents (such as aunts and uncles) or should kids have the right to pick and choose who kisses them?”

Thanks to the internet, some laggards had the opportunity to watch the final episode of “Mad Men” during the week following its broadcast. This should refute any allegations that a talk show has to be seen live to work.

Yes the concept of having an episode where someone asks George Lucas if the C. L. Moore stories about Northwest Smith had any influence on him and his Star Wars films is a very esoteric topic, but, like seeing Brando tell a racist joke, it might have some appeal to film school student fifty years (or more?) in the future.

Don’t many folks who are not in the industry love to hear show biz rumors and gossip? Is it true that the next installment of the “Saw” movie series will be a musical comedy?

The modern day installments of pundits making a critical appraisal of the week’s events in Washington D. C. is supposed to be a chance to (metaphorically speaking) listen in on a WWII bull session featuring Morrow’s Boys, but the reality is that it is actually a melee of authors with competing egos who want to deliver either a scathing example of wit in action or a brilliant “Eureka!” sound byte that lays bare the crux of the debate.

Are the talking heads in the USA going to ask: “What gives America the right to arrest the officials in charge of Soccer and the World Cup competition?” Does Lichtenstein have a right to arrest George W. Bush for war crimes?

Will the talk shows discuss the idea that the Broward Savings & Loan scandal should be just as important as the finances of the Clinton Foundation will be during the Presidential Election?

Is it mere coincidence that in an era when it is being asserted that a conscious effort to “dumb down” the USA is being conducted, wit is disappearing? A clever and caustic comment has to be understood to produce a laugh as a response.

If news for voters in the USA is being carefully monitored, that might explain why the Sunday morning gabfests don’t draw attention to the fact the internet is buzzing with two related rumors. One is that a neutron bomb was dropped on Iran recently or that one was sold or given to Saudi Arabia to use in Yemen.

If Americans were being given quality talk show debates, the question “Will Baghdad fall?” would present advocates of both a “yes” and “no” answer. Have you heard anyone giving the hypothetical point of view that it will fall?

Did the USA ever figure out who mailed the anthrax shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center?

Do talk shows ask about the lingering questions about who profited from selling airline stocks short at the time the World Trade attack occurred?

Speaking of the broadcasting concept of a “hard break,” the World’s Laziest Journalist tries to maintain a self-imposed three e-takes limit for the column and that means that we can only scratch the surface of this topic and then recommend that readers who want more should make the effort to obtain and (at least) skim through a copy of the book “Entertaining Ourselves to Death,” by Neil Postman.

The World’s Laziest Journalist does see the pragmatic benefit of the trend towards using social media to get publicity which translates into bigger audience numbers. For example, if we casually mention that San Francisco Bay Area political activist Mike Zint iis expanding his reach by managing the Listen up Mayors page on Facebook and if he (coincidence alert?) shares the links to our column, then the number of hits will quadruple. What’s not to like about that?

Do the viewers of Bill O know what obstreperous and impudent mean let alone require those qualities from an interesting and entertaining talk show?

[Note from the Photo editor: Since talk shows seem to have skipped interviews with Occupy Activists, we thought an old file photo of one of those anonymous political advocates who were MIA from the (biased?) late night talk shows might be an appropriate illustration for this week’s column. How can a talk show claim to have a balanced approach if all members of the one debating team are snubbed?]

Closing quote? Did Andy Warhol say “In the future, everyone will be a world famous talk show host for 15 minutes?” Or did he say: “In the future everyone will be the host for a world famous 15 minute talk show?”?

Now the disk jockey will play “Talk to me,” by Sunny & the Sunliners,Doris Day’s “Pillow Talk,” and the song “talk talk” by a group called “Talk Talk.” We have to go watch (thanks to DVD’s) some TV episodes from 1968. Have a “Dahhh Da Dohnt Dahhh – ‘This is the city . . .’” type week.

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May 8, 2015

Voice over moment in B-town

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Bill Boyd, Julie London, June Foray, Tony Marvin — Bob Patterson @ 12:36 pm

A life-long tendency to pay attention to people’s voices had spawned a long dormant project for expanding into radio features by taking a tape recorder around and talking to the owners of some very interesting voices, but that idea had been languishing in the bullpen for years and was not on the day’s agenda when we walked into Top Dog on Center Street in downtown Berkeley, earlier this week. When the young lady, Tiffany Case, at the counter took our order, we suddenly wished that we were carrying our micro-cassette recorder because her kewpie doll voice made us look around expecting to see an animated Canadian Mountie proclaiming: “Don’t worry, Nel, I’ll save you!”

We acknowledged our intention of getting a hot dog to slather with mustard and sauerkraut by responding: “If I were doing a radio commercial, I’d hire you to do the voice” and she enthusiastically replied: “I’m in the process of applying for a chance to do voice-overs for Pixar (an animation movie studio located in near-by Emeryville)!”

Her enthusiasm level reminded us of the old Clint Eastwood line: “Go ahead; make my day.”

When we were young we had compiled a list of our favorite voices and if someone ever assembles a Hall of Fame for voices, we would insist on nominating these voices from the past: John Carradine, Edward R. Murrow, Orson Welles, Bill Boyd (better known as Hopalong Cassidy), Winston Hibler, Jack Webb, Rod Serling, Senator Everett Durkson, Tony Marvin, and Mel Allen.

Some voices can cause pandemonium just by saying the name of the source. Such as? “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”

“They say” that a baby girl will pay more attention to the voice of a male stranger than to that of her own mother.

The women’s voices that caught our attention back when our voice (and attitude about girls) was changing were Julie London, Mercedes McCambridge (she provided the voice for the demon in “The Exorcist”), Rosemary Clooney, and Annette Funicello.

Back in the day, we had heard a bit on radio for Mothers’ Day that was a poem that started out “M is for the morphine that you gave me. . . .” We thought that the source of that bizarre bit of entertainment had been Lenny Bruce, but after a futile search of the Internets, we had asked the librarian at the Berkeley Public Library’s main branch and even then we still hadn’t located the source for those words.” So much for the theory that you can find the answers online to all questions.

We couldn’t pin the rap on Lenny Bruce but somehow we were obsessed with the idea that our column for the Mothers’ Day weekend had to include Lenny Bruce. He did say the word “mother” a lot, didn’t he?

In the past, we have suggested that reality TV do a voice-over competition.

We have personal knowledge of an event that took place many moons ago on the campus of a large University in Southern California made famous by Coach John Wooden. A young lady who was being paid to do interviews for a study called a phone number in New York City. The guy was so intrigued by the voice he asked the caller if she wanted to go out with him on the weekend. She demurred by noting that he was in New York City and she was in Los Angeles county. He then restated his offer. She declined again but he wouldn’t have been disappointed if had taken her out for dinner.

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015, we splurged and had a French breakfast at Le Petit Cochon in Berkeley and the experience of having a great meal was enhanced by the fact that while there we heard two song tracks by Johnny Cast that we had never heard previously.

When the Internet was in its formative stage, optimists were gushing about the fact that it would provide a way for people to hear new voices in various national debates. Pessimists responded that corporate America would use their clout to monopolize the new means of communication and shut down any chance for fresh blood in punditry game to gain a following.

We make a point of tuning in to the Armstrong and Getty radio show every Friday at 6:20 a.m. just to hear their sound clips of the week segment.

In the Los Angeles area, sportscaster Jim Healey used to play bleep filled rants from Tommy Lasorda, the manager of the Dodgers baseball team. It was fun to listen to them and attempt to fill in the bleeps (so to speak – as it were).

At one point, radio disk jockey, Wolfman Jack, bragged that his program was heard in 38 states because the signal (coming out of Mexico) was “coast to coast, border to border, wall to wall and tree top tall.” As the Sixties drew to a close, if you lived in the Lake Tahoe basin, there were only three reliable radio signals. Two were local and the third was the Wolfman’s show. It was an unforgettable listening experience.

On Wednesday, May 6, 2015, just after 9:30 a.m., we heard a story on KCBS news radio that started with a Berkeley Farms commercial that featured the legendary voice of San Francisco born Mel Blanc. They then transitioned into a story about how Clover of Petaluma is conducting an online search for a voice for their cow. (Google hint: Cloverpetaluma dot com and then click on the “Be Herd” link.)

In Los Angeles, our friend who called himself Chef Teddy B. Owen used to brag that the voices in his head had their own variation of the call waiting feature.

Berkeley area political activist Mike Zint reports that when he was working in the Santa Monica area as a retail clerk, he received several offers to do work as a voice over.

Our fact finding for this column indicated that June Foray, the voice of Rocket J. Squirrel is still alive. Her work is featured on a site called “behind the voice actors” dot com.

Whatever happened to the San Francisco radio station KFOG and their signature use of a sound clip of a foghorn?

According to Hollywood legend, Allen Ladd was working as union projectionist and when he asked a director if he wanted to see the dailies again, he suddenly was offered a chance to change careers and become an actor. The rest of the story (as they say) is history.

Maybe after we post this column, we should do some fact checking about how to submit pitches or material to NPR. If they like the idea, maybe it could be just like Rickey Blain says at the end of the movie “Casablanca:” “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”

Tune in again next week to see what happens to the columnist who seeks to become a distinctive voice in an overcrowded market.

The end quote for this particular column, just has to be the most famous movie line of all time. In “Gone with the Wind,” Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) said: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”

The disk jockey will now play Rosemany Clooney’s “Manniana” (which is banned on radio and not available on Youtube), the Guess Who’s “Clap for the Wolfman” and “You’re nothing but a nothing” (which allegedly included the lowest note ever produced by a human voice). We have to go listen to KCBS to hear Kiffany report the evening traffic conditions for the SF Bay Area. Have a “Boop Oop A Doo” type week.

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April 30, 2015

The more things change . . .

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Class of 1965, How Weird Street Faire, San Francisco, Vietnam — Bob Patterson @ 5:49 pm

Playing sound bytes that promote opposing points of view and then making the assertion that presenting facts and letting the audience form an opinion might be manipulation via flattery but it seems to be too esoteric and limiting for journalists to ask a long time Irish Catholic Democrat how might a Supreme Court Justice with a similar history vote on the issue of gay marriage. If the object is to let an announcement just before the Forth of July holiday catch many Americans by surprise and achieve maximum dissatisfaction and precipitate another chance to build a contentious atmosphere that will end with the (temporary) establishment of martial law, then feigning an inability to accurately assess the most likely ruling that will end the debate seems like a smart gambit.

If a writer can do research that produces an overwhelming picture of mismanagement and inappropriate conduct by Hillary Clinton that involved the Clinton Foundation while she was serving as Secretary of State few reporters will use that curious new development to ask why then couldn’t investigators find out who profited from the 9-11 events by short sales of airline stocks?

Presenting facts and letting the audience decide sounds like an admirable mission statement so John Stewart would be the only well know personality who could casually mention that the civil unrest in Baltimore was caused by a death while the Watts riots of fifty years ago, which led to many deaths and extensive property damage, was precipitated by a single traffic ticket.

Did the recent photos from Baltimore of a phalanx of soldiers remind older folks of a similar photo (cover of LIFE magazine?) taken in L. A. in June of 1965?

Is it prejudicial to note that after many thousands of lives have been terminated by collateral damage caused by drone strikes the loss of one American life has caused the journalists to seriously question the need for drone strikes? Does that disparity constitute prejudiced reporting or is it just subtle racism in action?

Remember Agent Orange? Isn’t a large protest against Monsanto scheduled to take place in May?

Do the anarchist protesters from Berkeley stand out by wearing tie-dye handkerchiefs over their faces?

American media seems to relish showing forty year old footage of the evacuation of Saigon in 1975 while ignoring the poignant scenes surrounding the commencement speeches given in May of 1965. How would the optimistic words from those speeches play in today’s world when politicians enthusiastically suggest sending American troops all over the world, and riots are plentiful? Would those speeches sound nostalgic today or would they sound very relevant?

What’s happening to the ship that Iran intercepted?

If you liked the video of the mom slapping her kid around that went viral this week, then you will get your jollies from a vintage video on Youtube. Search for “women self-defense 1947.” The actress, who has a passing resemblance to Alice Kramden (on the Honeymooners TV series), knocks around a thug just as easily as she would toss around a rag doll.

The college class of 1965 entered a world that was just about to witness the Watts riots and the start of military action in Vietnam that wasn’t sanctioned by Congress. We wonder if members of the class of ’65 would get a feeling of déjà vu from this week’s events in Baltimore and recent military actions in various countries in the Middle East.

There is one thing certain in today’s world: If people are still debating the same old topics fifty years from now, the World’s Laziest Journalist won’t be writing columns that recycle the same old facts in a new order of presenation.

If you think voter fraud is a new topic, please make an effort to see “The Great McGinty,” from 1940.

If Hillary Clinton sees Bernie Sanders get the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination, will she feel like a jilted bride (for the second time)?

The flap over a prisoner’s death in Baltimore seems to be a moot topic now after the authorities have found that a second prisoner is saying that theFreddie Gray fellow died of self-inflicted injuries. Will the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory public information officer issue a press release Friday hints/suggests/asks about the possibility that a quid pro quo agreement involved an immunity deal in return for the “walk off” revelation?

The mainstream media will immediately issue a “game over” assessment of the debate over the incident that incited civil unrest.

Has the mainstream media become extinct in the land of free speech? For folks in Berkeley who read the New York Times, it may seem that “the Great Gray Lady” has become the modern day substitute for the Berkeley Barb. If you aren’t reading that daily paper, then you don’t have a clue as to what’s happening to the country.

On Sunday, April 26, 2015, we put on our Aussie hat, mirror sunglasses, and activated the required cigarette holder (with the same unlit cigarette that we have used for the last three years) and plunged into some fact finding and photography efforts at the How Weird Street Faire held on (pun alert!) Howard Street in San Francisco. It was worth the effort.

Roaming around the San Francisco Bay area with a Nikon Coolpix may not be making America safe for Democracy but it is an effective (temporary) cure for boredom.

If gay marriage is ruled to be un-Constitutional, will dissention in San Francisco be more newsworthy than it has been in Baltimore?

Making snide remarks about national politics may not sway one single vote, but it sure is therapeutic for a perennial malcontent.

This week’s column is being posted earlier than usual because on Friday May 1, we intend on going to San Francisco to cover various May Day activities such as the tip that a member of the Merry Pranksters will announcean attempt to become Frisco’s mayor.

For the class of 1965, they could relish the feelings liberals experienced when, on Nov. 7, 1962, Richard Milhous Nixon said: “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

Now, for members of the class of ’65, the disk jockey will play Iggy Pop’s “I’m (the Chairman of the) bored,” Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” and Lynn Anderson’s “I beg your pardon (I never promised you a Rose Garden).” We have to hustle back to the Fortress of Solitude and resume our binge watching of “Rocky and Bullwinkle and friends.” Have a “self inflicted injuries” type of week.

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April 17, 2015

Shut up and Obey!

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Al Goldstein, Ernst Junger, Hateman, Lenny Bruce — Bob Patterson @ 12:30 pm

Regimentation, conformity, and obedience have become not just commendable traits, but in the era of the Republican Reich can be considered as virtues for every citizen to cultivate. Hence the voices of anyone who dares to disagree is labeled as emanating from “a conspiracy theory lunatic” and considered anathema. A nation born out of rebellion has morphed into a stogy old country where innovation and creativity are considered worthy of (metaphorical alert) an abortion procedure.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists have selected April 18 as “National Columnists’ Day,” because it was on that day, in the year 1945, when Ernie Pyle died in combat during WWII. Since America’s much vaunted “Free Press” isn’t reporting that the situation in the Middle East is alarmingly grim and the pundits are not heralding the fact that for the first time in American political History, there is Presidential Candidate who can (opinions are covered by the First Amendment) be described as “frumpy,” this year’s column noting the arrival of National Columnists’ Day will not be on a columnist per se, but will celebrate the nearly extinct species of “unique voice in America.”

Sometimes, even a fascist dictatorship can be tolerant of voices of dissent.

Ernst Junger won an Iron Cross from Germany during WWI and wrote a very jingoistic book about combat (Storm of Steel) and became a popular author in his home country. As WWII approached he produced a new novel that some alarmists thought was critical of the Third Reich. The would-be advocates of extreme censorship brought it to the attention of the Chancellor for life. Hitler reportedly shrugged it off and said to let the writer alone because he was, after all, the Iron Cross winner. Junger, whose biography was (the last time we checked) available in only a German language version, became the only German to win an Iron Cross in both World Wars and was named the cultural ambassador to Occupied Paris.

In America, it seems, Conservatives have become über-enthusiastic about censoring all political opinion that is not enthusiastically very patriotic and since they control the media, the Congress, and have a majority in the United States Supreme Court, mouthing-off in a critical mode is not very healthy for any aspiring political pundits.

It wasn’t always like that, boys and girls. When the non-Christian heathen Warren era Supreme Court opened the flood gate for pornographers (in the early Seventies) Al Goldstein started a newspaper with reviews and news about the burgeoning Industry and became a star in the Pop Culture area of the American media.

Lenny Bruce said naughty words (that everyone used in private conversations) on stage in his comedy routines, became very famous, and died.

Recently we heard (or at least thought we heard) a woman CBS radio news reporter described a harsh boss with the colorful descriptive term “prick.”

What could Lenny Bruce, if he were still alive and grossing and grumbling in the media today that could possibly get him into hot water? How about: “Those f*****g electronic voting machines that have no means for verifying the results are rendering elections to the category of irrelevant!”? He’d be labeled a conspiracy theory lunatic and banished from the spotlight just like he was in the Sixties.

The conservative owners of media would banish him from any and all publicity and ignore his attempts to point out that in an era when no computer seems to be invulnerable to hacking, it is silly (insane perhaps?) to think that a security system that features a des key that is readily available on the Internets can do what the state of the art programs can not.

In Berkeley, a homeless fellow (according to a local legend) used to use the free speech explanation to deliver rants on Sproul Plaza which sanctioned hatred. He became a local legend that merits the term “Berkeley’s beloved hateman.” Go figure.

Hypothetically speaking, there maybe a voice out there on the Internets that is an extreme example of free speech in action, but without a publicity agent to make him (or her) a media fad, the position of “America’s best known voice of dissention” must remain vacant.

There are (as of today) 570 days left until the USA votes for the 45^th President. It seems to be a strong likelihood that the contest will be a dual between two candidates who want to revitalize the concept of American Dynasty.

Yes, the Jon Stewart Show will feature some witty one-liners about JEB and Hillary and Saturday Night Live will do some acerbic skits at their expense, but will it be anything more relevant that seeing Richard M. Nixon go on “Laugh In” and asking: “Sock it to me?”?

Ernie Pyle and his associates produced a string of anecdotes about the ordinary G. I.’s that portrayed an image of Boy Scouts with guns hunting down mad dogs from other countries. They didn’t cover such interesting anomalies as the medal winning soldier in France who went AWOL and shacked up with a French chick.

Apparently the only thing the MP’s did was to round-up inebriated combatants on leave and put them in the slammer for a night so that they could sleep it off.

It’s not like the stifling of voices of dissent doesn’t serve a useful purpose. In the book “the Late, Great State of California,” the author examines how a California governor successfully used the issue of student dissent as a stepping stone for his bid to become the President. Apparently the sentiment that colleges spread communism has always been popular with patriotic voters.

In the hectic high pressure world of deadline journalism at its nerve wracking best, why bother to present both side when any imbecile can tell you that only one is correct?

Ironically, the need for a voice of dissent may never have been greater. The situation in the Middle East is shrouded in secrecy. Insightful commentary on the cauldron is MIA in the American media. An opposing point of view might qualify to be classified as treason so anyone foolish enough to mouth off might want to think twice before actually expressing a controversial point of view.

The prospect of dueling dynasties is too pathetic to merit serious commentary.

If, however, the United States Supreme Court, with a majority of conservative, compassionate, Christian Republicans declares that gay marriage is unconstitutional, it might be a very good thing if there are no voices of dissent which could be misconstrued as urging rebellion or fomenting and or inciting a riot in response to an unpopular decision.

If the Supreme Court declares that gay marriage is unconstitutional, it will be a case of “Game over” for the liberal advocates of that cause. At that point the liberals should be expected to display the good sportsmanship mode of conduct and be ready to shake hands with the opposing team and saying: “Good game!”

Sidebar story: Pauline Kael’s home in Berkeley is (reportedly) up for sale and some locals want it preserved as a historic site.

What makes a better news story: the NBA playoffs or a civil war between rival religions in a country you can’t find on a world map?

Mark Twain (reportedly) said: “God invented War so that Americans could learn Geography.”

Now the disk jockey will play the Rolling Stones’ “contractual obligation” album, Jimmy Buffet’s song “Let’s get drunk and screw,” and Pussy Riot’s Osvobodi Bruschatku (Release the Cobblestones [it’s on youtube]). We have to go see if we can find copy of the Berkeley Barb for this week. (Did they ever make a student protester doll?) Have an “abomination against nature” type week.

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April 3, 2015

Going to the Gates of Hell and back

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Ambrose Bierce, Amee Semple McPherson, D. B. Cooper, Judge Joseph F. Crater — Bob Patterson @ 12:28 pm

Traveling to the Gates of Hell (a work by Rodin, which is on display in the sculpture garden at the Stanford University campus), taking a selfie, and then returning to Berkeley only to find that a homeless protest will have to be covered for use in the Easter 2015 weekend round-up, which, in conjunction with a missed installment of our weekly writing chore, caused us to do some reevaluations of the weekly effort to grind out a column. Once a columnist has traveled to the Gates of Hell, what can he possibly do next week as an encore?

A video of a homeless person being beat-up was going viral last week and caused some local TV stations to send a news crews to Berkeley to investigate and report. The video caused the local homeless citizens to protest and respond: “There you go again!”

Mike Zint, the political activist has made the assertion that the use of Downtown Ambassadors to do clean up and perform some aspects of crowd control is actually a preliminary move in an attempt to privatize police work. A great deal of fact checking could produce a piece that alerts the public to a complicated topic and an alarming possibility regarding the “privatize it” trend.

The Republicans are loudly pro police and adamantly anti- union; so how do they stand on the question of police unions? Would they surreptitiously support an attempt to slowly start to replace union member police officers with lesser paid non-union workers?

Is that what’s happening now in Berkeley?

If the poor will still be a vexation to society long after this columnist goes to the great newsroom in the sky, why bother to write yet one more column on the eternal problem?

After building up a small core audience of regular readers, the best that the World’s Laziest Journalist can hope to do with these columns is to have certain items come to the attention of a mainstream media editor or freelance journalist who can bring greater awareness of the problem to his audience and then hope the topic “goes viral.” Why bother at all? Isn’t that question a fabulous chance to quote what the scorpion said to the frog: “It’s in my nature.”?

To hold on to a loyal core audience, a writer has to try to develop a unique voice which asks some obvious questions that have never before been asked. Such as? If a vampire’s image does not appear in a mirror and does not register on film, does that mean that vampires are immune and exempt from the selfie fad? Are their images absent when they take a selfie?

Some time ago, we learned in a course at Santa Monica College, that it takes about a month of work to produce a well written magazine article. That, as they say, is above the World’s Laziest Journalist’s pay grade. We knock out a three dot journalism style column each week and if our words inspire someone else to take up one of the items and do a great deal of extra work to turn it into a magazine article, we wish them God’s speed.

The military situation for the United States forces in the Middle East has become so convoluted and weird that it defies rational and perceptive analysis, so we are gradually abandoning that topic.

The Election desk at the World’s Laziest Journalist News Organization has projected a winner (JEB Bush) in the 2016 Presidential Election, and so any subsequent analysis of the event is irrelevant.

Speaking of speed, we have not had any feedback on our attempt to solicit help from a wealthy car owner to do a column describing what makes driving a Ferrari a much better experience than tooling around Santa Monica in a 1968 Chevy van.

Did you know that the Rent a Wreck firm was spawned by Bundy Rent a Wreck in the Santa Monica/West L. A. area? Rumor was (as reported in People magazine) that folks like Paul Newman would drive in one of their “beater” vehicles as a way to avoid being recognized as a world famous movie star.

Recently the World’s Laziest Journalist spent some (futile) time fact checking the existence of some super low cost airfares from Oakland to Europe. If we encounter some other travel bargain, a week without a column may mean that we are busy crossing a trip to New Zealand off the bucket list and not an indication that we pleased our harshest critics and croaked.

Maybe we will get the chance to write a column with a hed that reads: “From the Gates of Hell to Christ’s Church” or “From Fremantle to Freemont.”

If some young, energetic, and enthusiastic freelancer want to write about the assertion that “they” are trying to privatize police work, you can go to the “First they came for the homeless” page on Facebook to track down the aforementioned Mike Zint to get some good quotes and thus get the project started.

While we were on our Gates of Hell excursion, we chatted with people who were attending a symposium at Stanford on the subject of Artificial Intelligence. We learned that a person who pretends to be much wiser and more leaned than they actually are (moi, pseudo-intellectual?) are not examples of Artificial Intelligence, but are actually classified as examples of synthetic intelligence. (“I didn’t know that!”)

Are all the police shootings of blacks just a long series of coincidences or is the first American President of African American heritage, participating in a nationally coordinated program? Again, providing perceptive and insightful comments on either scenario is above the World’s Laziest Journalist’s pay grade.

Berkeley CA is in a congressional district that may well be classified as America’s most Liberal Congressional District. Why, then, are the homeless in Berkeley consistently complaining of mistreatment and why is the city trending towards claiming the title of having the most anti-homeless laws of any city in the state (or country?)?

The topics of war and poverty will be the subject of analysis and commentary for many years to come and so to provide an assortment of topics in our weekly effort to inform, amuse, and delight (?) our faithful readers, we may, given the proper circumstances, impulsively take a week or two hiatus to avail our self of a travel bargain as a means of doing some fact checking for non-political punditry columns. (Where did we put our copy of “Europe on $5 a Day”?)

Over the course of recent years, we have failed to get any publicity for our efforts from any nationally known fellow travelers, but the advantage of that situation is that we have carved a niche that permits us to develop a unique style that permits us to range from “verboten” topics, such as predicting that a Conservative Republican majority United States Supreme Court will certainly declare “an abomination against nature” to be unconstitutional to other esoteric and arcane bits of information such as “you can’t manufacture mayonnaise during a thunder storm,” with an air of impunity that is not available to wage slaves in the mainstream media.

Is the uproar over the new Indiana law actually a stealth way to measure the vitriol level potential if Gay Marriage is determined to be unconstitutional? Do the people who believe that peyote is a sacrament get any legal acknowledgement of their religious rights and beliefs?

Speaking of the movie “Double Indemnity,” did any of your usual sources address the topic of increased liability if an airplane crash is a suicide with numerous counts of murder attached rather than just an accident? Don’t cha just love a news source that proclaims: “Lies, exaggeration, or propaganda? We deliver and then let you sort it all out.”?

Again, we wish to thank our regular readers for their continued support and hits.

Maintaining an image of uncontrollable columnist errant is one thing, but the reality is that isn’t how it is. Our closing quote for this week is a Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) line: “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

Now the disk jockey will play Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Lenny Bruce’s “song” “Non Skeddo Flies Again” (It’s on youtube.) and the Rolling Stones song “Flight 505.” We have to go find the gin-mill that epitomizes the expression “old school bar.” Have a “don’t even think of watering the lawn” type week.

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March 20, 2015

American Geniuses

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Howard Hughes, Karl Rove, Mike Zint, Orson Welles — Bob Patterson @ 12:29 pm

“Magician, the Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles” is a new documentary film that tells the story of the fellow who made radio history and classic films, and was very much underappreciated while doing those things. Welles was a very innovative movie maker and is credited with inspiring the creation of the wide angle lens for “Citizen Kane.”

By pure coincidence, the additional material on a DVD of Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” had alerted us to the fact that Howard Hughes had many things in common with Orson Welles. Hughes was born fabulously wealthy and he never developed a reverence for money and the need to budget wisely. Welles never seemed to have had a conservative approach to fiscal matters. He claimed that on his first night in Dublin Ireland, he spent all his travel money on a lavish meal. Embellishing a story for dramatic effect seems to be a likely modus operandi for a fellow who was noted for a great sense of theatricality.

Hughes was (perhaps) the only Hollywood film director to be honored with a tickertape parade down Broadway in New York City. He received that honor for setting a record for an around the world flight.

Welles was given a lifetime achievement Oscar.

Both men were notorious for their love lives.

Hughes was an aviation pioneer and a celebrated film maker but he also was responsible for some very practical achievements such as introducing retractable landing gear on airplanes. It was an innovation which dramatically increased their speed. His companies made technical innovations which had a beneficial effect on weapons and thus he improved the quality of America’s ability to wage war. His contributions to technology and aviation, which made modern drone strikes possible, was not fully communicated to the American public which dwelled on his flamboyant public image and his impact on that facet of society that thrives on gossip column items.

Welles burst on the New York theater scene already a legend. He had barely passed voting age when he feuded with Hemingway over the narration of a documentary film about the Spanish Civil War.

Part of the Welles legend is that his radio broadcast based on H. G. Wells’ (no relation/different spelling) novel about an invasion from Mars caused mass panic and traffic gridlock. Newspaper articles stating that fact are plentiful but skeptics who wonder if that was just an example of Hollywood ballyhoo are hard pressed to find some citizen who can provide eyewitness descriptions of the alleged example of mass hysteria. Skeptical reporters are advised to always avoid fact checking the legend.

Back then, people were encouraged to get diverse points of view. People who tuned into the Welles broadcast and switched stations to get a different set of facts quickly learned that the other radio networks were presenting the usual Sunday evening smorgasbord of comedy.

A column about American geniuses must note that this week, in San Francisco, it was reported by KCBS news radio that St. Mary’s Cathedral would have to pay to remove the sprinkler system it had installed to soak the homeless sleeping in their doorways, because they had made the “improvement” without getting a building permit. Wouldn’t it have been quicker and more efficient if the bishop had just gone out and urinated on them?

To cynics, it seems that America’s “War on Poverty” has become a war on the poor.

When we asked the Berkeley homeless activist Ninja Kitty if a (formerly) homeless person had ever been elected to Congress, didn’t he respond by saying: “There’s a first time for everything!”?

It used to be that exit polls were credited with pin-point accuracy, but lately they don’t seem to be very reliable at all. Time after time results contradict the exit polls. With that in mind, we predict that Karl Rove’s greatest behind the scenes achievement in American Politics is yet to be achieved. Wouldn’t the reestablishment of the Bush Dynasty be Rove’s greatest triumph?

“Magician” is a Cliff’s Notes style documentary film that will inform the people who are not aware of Welles’ story about the life of a genius and it will also give established Welles fans a new chance to hear his voice and see film sequences which give tantalizing hints about his magnetism and charm.

Clifford Irving wrote a book about a fellow who was very successful painting and selling counterfeit works of art. Irving also wrote a bogus Howard Hughes autobiography.

One of Welles’ many film projects was “F is for Fake,” which included a segment about Clifford Irving.

Now the disk jockey will play Orson Welles’ rendition (it’s on Youtube) of “I know what it is to be young (You don’t know what it is to be old),” Rita Hayworth’s “Put the Blame on Mame, Boys” (conspiracy theory folks assert it was dubbed) and the theme music from “The Third Man.” We have to go fact check the rumor that the Pacific Film Archive will open its new Berkeley home with a tribute to the films of Orson Wells. Have a “Rosebud” type week.

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March 13, 2015

A bruin in bear country

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Beach Boys, de Young Museum, Leprechauns, UCLA vs; USC — Bob Patterson @ 12:28 pm

[Note: This column is an attempt to achieve humor by supplying a hypothetical answer to the question: “What would it be like if a Leprechaun celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by writing a political punditry column?”]

Technically it is still winter, but Berkeley has switched to using the summer clock set for Pacific Daylight Time and for some, it’s time to start spring cleaning. The decision about which team to support in the annual UCLA vs. USC football match-up has been made and we are not about to let any facts play a role in a decision to reconsider our choice.

To some that may seem a tad illogical but the sad fact remains that some people make their political decisions in the same uninformed blind prejudicial manner.

The implications attached to the fact that most of the conservatively owned media is not paying much attention to the long term implications of the Republicans communications with Iran is another subject that will also be ignored by the so-called journalists in the USA. If the Democratic politicians dared to question any move that George W. Bush made while he was president, their patriotism and sanity would have been subjected to immediate and unrelenting ridicule and derision, but it the President happens to be a mulatto Democrat, well then, anything the Republicans do in response to Obama’s program is portrayed as an example of partisan politics at its best.

If, as with the Iran-Contra affair, a Republican President ducks providing material with the potential of being incriminating, well then, the conservative press moguls just have a good laugh but God forbid that a measly (have your kids been inoculated?) Democratic woman should not provide full transparency regarding her e-mails.

If the mainstream media is ordered to ignore Operation Stingray, why should the World’s Laziest Journalist spend Tuesday, March 10, 2015, doing some fact checking and collecting background information on the news potential of that topic, when, instead, it was a perfect time to go see the new Botticelli to Braque Masterpieces from the National Galleries os Scotland exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco? The fact that the world class museum is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the North Beach area where a fantastic Italian cuisine lunch was available at a very affordable price just made the choice to have a great time in Frisco seem so much more preferable to wasting time on something that Fox News deems to be a topic that appeals only to conspiracy theory lunatics.

On Wednesday, March 11, 2015, the World’s Laziest Journalist attended the regularly scheduled meeting of the Berkeley Police Review Commission and we realized (opinion alert!) that they were given a “myth of Sisyphus” task when they were assigned to investigate the events that occurred on the evening of December 6, 2014. They decided to hold a special meeting next week and invite the Berkeley Chief of Police (or his designated representative) to come back.

The Berkeley Police Review Commission faces a myriad of difficult problems that only become more complex and baffling when they are examined. For example, the topic of getting video equipment that police officers can wear while on duty seems to be a popular idea this week. However, as it was pointed out at Wednesday’s meeting, the cost of obtaining the equipment and providing security for the hardware is insignificant when compared with the cost of providing storage for the digital material, which would also be required.

During this week, CNN seemed (opinion alert!) to have had a Cronkite moment when the talking head noted that the USA is sending citizens to fight and die installing the American Way (i.e. Democracy) in foreign countries, while the perception in Europe is that the government in the USA is fast approaching a point of complete gridlock, which means Democracy ain’t working. Could avid Republicans conclude that CNN just doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Hilary’s e-mails, the Logan Act, and local politics in Ferguson Mo. are just some of the distractions intended to entertain and amuse the workers in the media while staunch Republicans (opinion alert!) eagerly await the inauguration of President-elect JEB Bush. Some preliminary events are scheduled but the inevitable inauguration of JEB and the restoration of the Bush Dynasty is (for them) a sure thing that will happen faster than you can say “Broward Federal Savings and Loan.”

Hilary or JEB? If you don’t know now who will get your vote, why not just flip a coin?

After a happy-go-lucky columnist, who covered the Oscars forty years ago, passes his 28^th birthday, there comes a day when he is bound to assess the process of running around to things like the Berkeley Police Review Commission meetings and say: “I’m getting too old for this ****! Perhaps I should just join a group at one of the conveniently located Berkeley Senior Centers and settle down and learn to sew and do some book reviews.” Life could then be like living a Beach Boys song.

Speaking of writing movie reviews, the Employees Recreation Committee at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory gave a standing ovation following a screening of “Conspiracy Theory,” starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts . . . but then they called for an immediate investigation into why the main stream media seems to be willfully ignoring this ahead of its time bit of Hollywood magic.

The most popular joke at the Conspiracy Theory Factory this week was: “What’t the difference between the airplane that Harrison Ford crashed on the golf course and the one that crashed into the Pentagon? Answer: The NTSB found more debris to use for a subsequent investigation at the Penn Mar gold course than it did at the Pentagon crash site.”

Maybe if CNN just had a Cronkite moment, it’s too early to abandon the online political punditry game. Then, again, perhaps we should just write a novel about a life-long IrishCatholicDemocrat, who (on a lark) decides to run for Congress as a Republican in one of the nations strongest Liberal Democrat districts and . . . wins.

Fukushima, polar icecap meltdown, and Civil War in Syria might make it seem like the golden age of pessimism has arrived..

Good sportsmanship is important and no matter which team wins the game this year at Thanksgiving, the captain of the loosing team will shake hands and say “Good game!” to the captain of the winning team. Good Republicans (opinion alert) might consider that the Supreme Court could both literally and figuratively speaking, see these two decisions as a chance to “win one for the Gipper!”

With that in mind, and being aware that Liberal punditry is becoming extinct, if the United States Supreme Court invalidates Obamacare and/or declares the concept of gay marriage as unconstitutional, we can only hope that the disappointed Democrats will greet the decisions with a spirit of good sportsmanship and that they say in unison: “Good game!”

In Berkeley, where the University of California’s local team uses blue and gold colors and an image of a resident of bear country, it is relatively easy to show a preference for the outcome of the annual UCLA vs. USC game because the one participant in America’s greatest cross town rivalry features blue and gold and graphics that depict a bruin.

Would “St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin” make a good column headline? Does Dublin California celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

If the Republicans won a majority in Congress and the Senate by promising to end political stagnation and the end result is complete legislative gridlock will that have a deleterious effect on JEB’s inauguration in January of 2017? **** NO! ! ! Thank God for the electronic voting machines that leave no way to verify the results!

The closing quote was said by Knute Rockne: “Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.”

Now the disk jockey will play the Beach Boys “Be true to your school,” “Shut down,” and “God only knows.” We have to go buy an Irish Rovers’ album. Have a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” type week.

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March 6, 2015

Hemingway, O’Reilly, Murrow

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: bill o'reilly, Brain Williams, Edward R. Murrow, Ernest Hemingway — Bob Patterson @ 1:29 pm

According to legend, Ernest Hemingway arrived in Paris three days before the Allied Armies did. A trip to Paris in 1986 seemed like a great opportunity to do the fan’s attempt to conjure up the spirit of the famous writer but we did not anticipate a chance to do any serious fact checking. While visiting Harry’s New York Bar, an old fellow caught us off guard when he said that he had inherited the place from his father and when he, the present owner, was a child, he had sat on Mr. Hemingway’s lap while the famous writer told stories. We were so engrossed in his descriptions of the repeated encounters with the young but already famous writer, that we missed the chance to ask him if Hemingway had actually arrived before the Allied Armies. The Liberty Valance rule made doing any fact checking seem like heresy. When facts and legend contradict each other, always print the legend.

Recently Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly had become a subject for fact checking by his associates and the consensus opinion seems to be that there is a credibility gap being generated which, in turn, tarnishes Fox News’ reputation.

Brian Williams has been suspended from the anchor chair at NBC Nightly News because he claims that he rode on a helicopter in a war zone that received enemy fire. The account has been challenged by others who are qualified to confirm or refute the specifics of Williams’ story.

Since Williams works for a news organization that is perceived as “pro-Liberal,” the conservatives are making the assertion that Williams has rendered NBC’s credibility to the nil level.

If Charles Manson (hypothetically speaking) were to deliver a news report that provided undeniable evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was not working alone when he shot JFK, would the fact that most people do not approve of Manson’s ethics and personal conduct be sufficient to invalidate the remarkable report?

There is a certain amount of irony to be derived from noticing that the two different reactions to the veracity of the two journalist comes at the same time that CBS will mark the sixty-first anniversary of what many consider to be the high water mark for American Journalism: Edward R. Murrow’s report on Sen. Joseph McCarthy broadcast on March 9, 1954. (Google: “See It Now” McCarthy report)

During WWII, Murrow risked death and infuriated his bosses by going on a bombing mission over Berlin. (Google hint: “Edward Murrow orchestrated hell”)

Conservatives assert that Brian Williams has committed “stolen valor” with his bragging. They give full and complete absolution to O’Reilly and ignore the long list of war correspondents that died covering various wars over the course of history.

The conservative tendency for holding two opposing points of view simultaneously (called “double think” by George Orwell) can best be illustrated by the old axiom: “My wife’s married, but I’m not.”

Would Gerda Taro, Robert Capa, and Ernie Pyle be inclined to blithely dismiss the idea that O’Reilly is stealing valor from the list of war correspondents who were killed in action?

Speaking of war stories of valor and daring, we wonder how General Douglas McArthur got the nickname “Dugout Dug.”

Once, on NPR radio, we heard the story of a fellow who was assigned to defend a pass where an attack was expected. He had a machine gun and was credited with single handedly killing more than 600 enemy soldiers in one night. Some people think the guy should have gotten a Medal of Honor.

The fictional character Baron Munchausen was renowned for telling absurd stories that had an extreme flavor of outrageousness to them buttressed by a thread of logic that made them seem (theoretically) possible.

In a bookstore in San Francisco, earlier this week, we noticed a new book which promised to teach the art of storytelling to sales reps.

St. Ronald Reagan was a superb story teller. He told one story about campaigning for President in Iowa. He knocked on a farmer’s door and when the fellow was flabbergasted by his famous caller, he had a senior moment and couldn’t think of the former actor’s name. St. Reagan gave the baffled fan a clue: “Do the initials R R help?” The fellow broke into a large smile and turned and shouted into the interior of the home: “Momma, come quick and meet Roy Rogers!”

Misleading people for fun and votes might seem a tad misguided to some journalists. The philosophy that “we report; and let you decide” is a bit deceptive because it assumes that everyone in the audience is capable of doing their own quality analysis. “We distort and let you jump to wrong conclusions” would be a more ingenuous slogan.

Here is an exaggerated tale of why that isn’t a good policy: A person you know slightly tells you that your business partner is having an affair with your wife and is cooking the books and robbing you blind. Fair enough? Just suppose that the rest of the story is that the guy was setting you up. You killed your business partner and then while you were in prison the tell all Good Samaritan marries your now ex-wife and you learn that your business partner was an innocent bystander. The guy who filled your ears with lies had an ulterior motive. You leaped to some erroneous conclusions and took action. Would you have acted differently if you knew the “reporter” was trying to trick you?

The fact that most high-school graduates don’t challenge the logic of “we report; you decide” is a preposterous situation. The results could be just as bad as they were in the hypothetical story above. Who doesn’t love being the butt of an old fashioned practical joke?

Doesn’t Bill O’Reilly work for an organization that went to court and established that it has a legal right to tell lies in the guise of supplying facts for citizens to make informed judgments?

After hearing a stream of news reports about bad snowstorms causing all kinds of closures and disruptions of service for people living on the USA’s East Coast, we were a bit disconcerted to hear news reports that during the same time frame new car sales were good and that new jobs were created. Has skepticism earned a place on the endangered species list?

On Friday March 6, 2015, the Getty and Armstrong radio show reported that the “hands up; don’t shoot” meme was inaccurate and had not actually occurred.

Hemingway was boastful and may have exaggerated some of his accomplishments. His fans don’t want to be burdened with the odious task of doing some precise fact checking to separate the hard facts from the legends. Brian Williams worked for a liberal news organization and is being punished severely. Bill O’Reilly is getting the rich kid pass from an indulgent father responseto what he has done. “Now run along and play!”

[Note from the photo editor. A montage image is the best we could do this week.]

Here is the quote of the week. When the woman combat photographer Dickey Chappelle complained about mosquitoes buzzing around her while taking pictures on Iwo Jima, a Marine corrected her misperception: “Those wasn’t mosquitoes, ma’am, they was Japanese bullets.

Now the disk jockey will play “Who shot Liberty Valance,” “Do not forsake me,” and the theme from TV’s “Gun Smoke.” We have to go start our own urban legends. Have a “good night and good luck” type week.

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February 20, 2015

Art, Kink, and Police brutality

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Caryl Chessman, Entartete Kunst — Bob Patterson @ 1:28 pm

Rude awakenings are trending in Berkeley CA this year. First the Berkeley Liberals were confronted with tear gas and getting hit with batons, then the street personality known as Ninja Kitty was taking an illegal nap when a policeman kicked him in the groin as a friendly reminder the rules were being broken. After a hearty laugh, the cop proved he was a good sport by helping to get Ninja to the hospital where he received treatment for a bruised gonad and substantiating paper work to serve as the basis for a lawsuit.

The local citizens, who protested the police response to a “Black Lives Matter” demonstration on Telegraph Ave., in early December are not used to being ignored by the city council and became annoyed by a series of hearings on the matter. Homeless young folks are used to being marginalized by police and politicians but the local voters (who protested the war in Viet Nam?) think that living in a Democracy means that protests help form policy decisions might be shocked (“Shocked, Ricky, by this outrage!”) to learn that the homeless are routinely harassed and occasionally kicked in the groin by the police.

Coincidentally Valentine’s Day and the opening of “Fifty Shades of Gray,” brought up the subject of consent with regard to rough sex.

We noted that there were many examples of people issuing the advice to boycott a film which they had not seen.

It is rather disconcerting to see citizens in the USA, which sent thousands of young men to die fighting the Third Reich, using and promulgating Hitler’s philosophy of prior censorship regarding degenerate art. When Hitler held his famous exhibition, that denounced and ridiculed modern art as being Entartete Kunst (AKA degenerate art), American intellectuals deplored the effort as censorship. However now that the righteous indignation that was generated by Hitler’s stunt is long forgotten, the self-appointed guardians of public morals see the release of Fifty Shades as a golden shower of opportunities to spank the public for being interested in a kink oriented film.

In a country that values free speech, it would seem to be more logical to see the picture and then analyze the philosophy expressed by the film. It was rather disconcerting (there’s that word again in this paragraph) to find that the fanatical religious zealots tasked with teaching others how to conduct their lives were asserting that the film depicted consent by force, when, in fact, the point of “only if you agree to this” is made repeatedly. Oh well, the dummies that rely on a review from a fanatic, who had not seen the film, wouldn’t (most likely) have the ability to analyze and comment on the film on their own. Hence they cling to the believe that an uniformed review is better than none at all. Those same ill-informed ditto=heads would vehemently deny that they were endorsing Hitler’s idea that the public should not be relied upon to make judgments regarding religion, morals, and art. (Only liberal Democrats [in Berkeley?] believe in that kind of “let the people decide” carp, eh?)

Nazis and Nazi sympathizers might be delighted to learn that, according to the new book “Culture Crash,” the internet is slowly killing off Art. The book’s main premise is that by providing a way for people to get Art for free (i.e. download music) it makes earning a living much more challenging. Only the big name bands make money when they tour and fill stadiums the beginning bands are forced to play for chicken-feed payments and do work that was previously provided by record companies (such as generating publicity). The plight of freelance writers is depicted being just as bleak.

Only independently wealthy artists can subsist while perfecting their art. Thus the dominance of an art by people who are subsidized by a family and/or friends is just a variation of the old 1 percent phenomenon. Artists who have a trust fund to sustain them during their “starving artist” phase of development will survive, the rest will “sell out to the Establishment” and get a boring job.

“Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class,” by Scott Timberg, may merit a full review in a future column, but for this column (mostly) about Berserkeley, we will urge the country club elite in B-town to read page 48 and note this: “The key thing a university town brings is a constantly changing cast of 18 to twenty-two year olds: A few drop out or stick around to become artists themselves, but the rest can provide the audience for whatever weird, cheap stuff is happening ‘downtown.’”

In B-town, the high school mascot is a yellow jacket, which brings us to a heavy duty bit of philosophy: what’s the difference between a bumble bee, a yellow jacket, and a hornet? Why did B-town high pick a yellow jacket as the mascot? Why not a bumble bee?

The liberals in Berkeley have always been ready to run down to the latest anti-war demonstration but they are a bit reluctant to participate in any political rallies that seem to be critical of Obama.

Should liberals wear patches showing which political causes they support?

To outsiders, it may seem as if Berkeley Liberals believe in the old “one for all; all for one” philosophy of political dissent, but upon closer inspection there seem to be as many different causes in the one liberal congressional district.

The World’s Laziest Journalist has encountered activists in Berkeley who protested the execution of Caryl Chessman.

It seems as if the same roster of political activists show up at all the local rallies.

Doesn’t it make sense that citizens who show up to help the “First they came for the poor” group protest the possible sale of the Berkeley Post Office building should wear patches indicating if they also support the help the homeless cause, the feed the hungry cause, the Black Lives Matter cause, the tax the rich advocates, the “go green” movement and so on and so forth?

For example, what will happen if the Republicans do impeach Obama and Joseph Biden becomes the President? Will the men who support women’s liberation be required to work for Hilary in 2016 or will they be free to urge the re-election of Biden? Do those who work for the gay marriage cause also say that Adam and Steve have a right to abortion on demand?

The idea that there is a standard issue “Berkeley Liberal” is preposterous. There are as many different recipes for making a Berkeley Liberal as there are people claiming the right to wear that label.

The baby boom generation has caused a statistics spike all through their life and now that they are reaching retirement age, it may be no surprise to learn that the latest liberal cause in California is advocating for the rights of senior citizen prison inmates. Recently we heard a news report on the radio (KCBS most likely) that said that some political activists are urging separate prison space for senior citizens as a safety measure. Do the older prisoners get state provided walkers so that they can get to and from the yard for their exercise period?

The current meme in the media is that the United States seems to be losing in the Middle East. If the media keeps harping on that note for the next year and a half, won’t the Republican Frontrunner, JEB Bush, be portrayed as a refreshing change of pace even though it was his brother that got the country into that particular quagmire?

[Note from the photo editor: The question “What is Art?,” which was asked by Hitler is being asked again by folks who disapprove of a new movie. We used a photo of a controversial box of detergent to illustrate this week’s column about the decline and fall of culture in the digital age.]

This week’s closing quote was a listener comment read on the Getty and Armstrong radio show. A high school student maintained that “Cheerleading isn’t analysis.”

Now the disk jockey will play Dean Martin’s “Ain’t that a kick in the head,” Paul Revere’s “Kicks,” and the Rolling Stone’s “Gimme Shelter.” We have to go buy a “Fifty Shades of Entartete Kunst” T-shirt. Have a “kick ’em when they’re down” type week.

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February 13, 2015

Koch $ + Fox News + Stepford voters = JEB as 45

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: Bob Woodruff, Brian Williams, Dan Rather, Jeb Bush — Bob Patterson @ 1:38 pm

When the Bush administration made the preposterous suggestion that plastic sheeting and duct tape should be used to construct air-tight safe rooms in the homes across America, we eagerly anticipated a tsunami of ridicule to appear in the mainstream media but nothing was said. A few days later when a story appeared in the New York Times reporting a sudden spike in the sales of plastic sheeting and duct tape, we fired off a letter to the editor and sent it off via e-mail to their east coast main office.

The next day, Valentine’s Day 2003, there were about a dozen letters to the editor commenting on the feature story in the previous day’s issue. My effort was one of the ones selected. We had mentioned the fact that the absurd suggestion was the recipe for a tragedy involving asphyxiation and the drawing that accompanied the letters on the topic depicted an anthropomorphized house struggling to catch a breath because it was wrapped in plastic.

About noon, later in the day, SecDef (aka Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference and stressed that the suggestion was meant to be metaphoric because if the safe room was air-tight the occupants would die of asphyxiation. To our way of thinking this was the best Valentine’s Day gift we have ever received because it validated our perception that the World’s Laziest Journalist was capable of producing unique and insightful political commentary.

Subsequently, we acquired a collection of books on the esoteric subject of the inadequacies of America’s Free Press. The Preface to “Manufacturing Consent,” by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, says: “If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to ‘manage’ public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.”

We had wondered why the media seemed quite lax about a long list of questions. Who did profit from selling airline stocks short right before 9-11? Why was the story about the Bin Laden family being hustled out of the USA quashed? Where did the WMD’s go? Etc.

Was the Stepford press fooling the Stepford voters as part of a mass example of irrational thinking or was there some kind of effort to manufacture consent? If so, could the bottom line be that after years of grumbling and criticizing, the people could be bamboozled into complete unquestioning obedience if the Christian majority in the United States Supreme Court legislated from the bench and declared gay marriages unconstitutional? We’ll soon find out if the conservatives can get away with such outrageous politicizing of the judicial branch of American government.

Could the liberals be coerced by the Free Press into believing that another theft of the Presidency and a restoration of the Bush Dynasty was a valid example of Democracy in action?

The Koch brothers blatantly admitted that they intended to donate $889 million to the Presidential Campaign for the 2016 Presidential Election and it is obvious that not one goddamn cent of that will be used to subsidize the liberal point of view in an effort to bolster the illusion that a national debate will precede the charade that will accompany the election of JEB Bush as the 45^th President of the United States.

The media is constantly running new scare stories about how new and elaborate computer hacks are compromising security and ruining lives but the idea that the hackers could work their magic on the electronic voting machines which leave no way to verify the results is universally denounced as a conspiracy theory.

If the electronic voting machines, which have a security Des Key number that is available online, are that good, why isn’t their security program being used to guard the personal data that is being lost everyday online? If it isn’t that good, why do the media persist in promulgating the myth that it is?

When George W. Bush suggested that it might be a good idea for the United States to insert itself into the military situation in the Middle East, some snarky liberals suggested that since the situation was a perpetual series of vicious reprisals in response to barbaric outrages, it might not be such a wise move.

Recently, Jordon announced that it would bolster its efforts to bomb ISIS as a result of the barbaric execution of one of their pilots. The recent Jordanian validation of the Bush decision to become an integral part of what he called “the forever war,” gives the Stepford voters an indication of just how futile dissent has become.

The World’s Laziest Journalist has produced many columns skeptical of the Bush war crimes and policies. Now that President Obama has asked for a renewal of the War Powers Act, we will drop our criticism of the Bush Forever War and assume that America’s Democrats will have a Prodigal Son moment when Obama sends additional troops to fight the bad guys in the Middle East. [Note: Since the name of the bad guys is constantly changing this columnist will just use the generic term “Viet Cong” to designate the enemy in the Middle East.]

If, as some of the Orthodox members of the staff of the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory assert, some nefarious strategists on the good guy team alerted the Viet Cong about the itinerary that Bob Woodruff would be taking, then the conservatives have scored a trifecta by successfully removing the anchor at all three liberal media TV networks. Dan Rather and Brian Williams might be prone to also suspect that a conspiracy explanation for the downfall of Don Imus might be well founded and not be an example of a paranoid imagination at work. (For extensive coverage of the Brian Williams story check out the media news site done by Jim Romenesko (Google hint: jimromenesko dot com)

When George W. Bush stated that there were WMD’s in Iraq, it led to a war and caused the deaths of many American troops and left many more wounded, crippled and damaged for life, but that was OK with conservatives because the President didn’t know that there were no WMD’s to be found. Brian Williams, has told lies, caused NBC to lose credibility, and stolen valor and therefore, according to the Conservative code of ethics, the liberal media star’s life must be ruined and his career must be destroyed.

Conservatives give complete amnesty to Republican politicians who commit crimes if they ask for God’s forgiveness but liberal media anchors must be held to a much higher standard.

The stigma attached to the Bush Dynasty has just been completely expunged by the President’s request for renewed authorization of the War Powers Act and that clears the way for the election of JEB Bush and removes the need for a Judas goat to lead the Democratic Party.

Is it true that President Obama plans to hold a pro War Powers renewal rally for a limited number of high level members of the Democratic Party and that the exclusive event will be held in Nuremburg Pennsylvania?

Now that the liberals will be retroactively endorsing the Bush war agenda, our columns will focus on other more innocuous topics.

John Stewart is calling it quits. Good liberal punditry is rapidly becoming as old fashioned as linoleum flooring. If Karl Rove’s plan for a thousand year Republican Reich is about to be realized, then, perhaps, the World’s Laziest Journalist can revise the Bucket List and attack certain items with renewed vigor.

Willie Nelson has collaborated with an impressive number of other musicians and rather than criticizing Obama’s endorsement of the Bush war strategy, we will now start a grass roots campaign to encourage fans to demand a collaboration album featuring duets done by Nelson and Mick Jagger.

[Note from the photo editor: We selected an enigmatic snapshot to illustrate this column related to a newsman’s story that mocks the concept of fact-checking. It can’t be a photo of a couple who died on May 23, 1934, if it shows people standing on a 1937 Plymouth.]

Brian Williams is quoted online as saying: “Your are only as good s the coach thinks you are.”

Now the disk jockey will play Kitty Wells’ “I don’t claim to be an angel,” CCR’s “Run through the Jungle,” and Bob Hope’s theme song “Thanks for the memories.” We have to go see if we can buy a WMCA Good Guy t-shirt. Have a “six months vacation without pay” type week.

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February 6, 2015

Harry Street, Sal Paradise, and Raoul Duke

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: and Raoul Duke, Harry Street, Sal Paradise — Bob Patterson @ 1:31 pm

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[Note: To increase the humorous quotient for this column portions may contain fictionalization and/or exaggerations.]

When we entered grade school in Scranton Pa., our fist life lesson was to realize that since we were too young to buy an Irish Sweepstakes ticket, it would be futile to pray to the “Lotto God” for a winning ticket. Hence we encountered our fist experience with the advice: “Get a good lawyer!” We did and his first question was: “Why do you want a winning ticket?”

“So that we can have money and afford to travel around the world, meet celebrities, and have interesting and enjoyable experiences,” we replied. “Well then, you should address prayers to the creator of the universe, asking for those items. The lotto god gets more prayers than there are lottery prizes and he has to disappoint many supplicants. However if you ask directly for what you want, perhaps he isn’t being overwhelmed with similar prayers and can grant your request.” We took his advice and started to pray as per his clever wording and the payoffs started immediately.

In grade school, one of the nuns told us that in the United States of American anyone present in the class room (she didn’t exempt the girls even back then) could become President of the United States and if that happened in first or second grade (which we think it did) then one of the students in the room was Joseph Biden and the point was well taken. We noted that particular moment when it happened because we had a odd premonition that some time in the future we would have a need to write about it.

As a kid, we noted that to have an adventurous, glamorous, and exciting life, we could help the creator of the universe grant our prayers by preparing for a career as a writer and or columnist.

The lawyer was right, of course, because we didn’t want a bundle of money and the responsibility of accurate tax records and the need to hire accountants, we just wanted to cross a bunch of things off our bucket list, such as: working on a ship, flying in the Goodyear blimp, attending the Oscars, having a celebrity (Paul Newman as it turned out) ask for our autograph, a flight in a B-17 G WWII bomber, having a drink (diet Pepsi) in Hemingway’s favorite bar in Paris, living out scenes from our favorite movies come to life, a trip to Australia, and so on and so forth.

Once, while shopping in Beverly Hills on Christmas Eve, a fellow, attired in white pants, a blue blazer, and a yachting cap, got out of a Rolls Royce, stopped at the adjacent parking meter and, after fumbling though his pants for coins, turned to us and asked if he could borrow a quarter. To us, it was Fred C. Dobbs asking: “Say, mister, could you stake a fellow American to a meal?”

While trading banter with the South Lake Tahoe Police Department’s watch commander, we heard the fellow tell a story about how, in his rookie days, on one of his first calls, he had investigated the sudden death of a local resident. He elaborated how and why he had suspicions that the dead man might actually have been the fellow who, while serving as the Chief of Police for San Francisco, had disappeared. It took us almost forty years to put that news tip into use, but we may have been the first blogger to make a reference to the case of Chief Biggie who vanished in 1908 from a police launch which was crossing the San Francisco Bay.

After becoming determined to go see the endurance race at Sebring, in the Sixties, we realized as the week of the race began, that unless someone called us out of the blue and offered us a ride from Scranton to Florida and the race in particular, that item was predestined to remain on our Bucket List a bit longer. At 1 p.m., someone who knew how to reach us while we were at our Aunt Dorothy’s house, placed just such a call. We sold a photo to Sports Car Graphic that was used in their picture page report on the race.

Watching weekly episodes of “the Twilight Zone,” when they were fresh out of the box, it never occurred to us that some day we would be chatting about a problem with a story idea and that one of the guys who wrote episodes for that famous TV series would ask us if he could use the fictional story premise we had just outlined. We said “Yeah” and added a stipulation that one of the characters in the story should share our name.

Then there was the time we went to the Forum and when we got to the “Today’s event tickets” window, we said it would be OK if the sales clerk put us in the front row . . . and she did!

Collecting a series of memories that rival the product of a very vivid imagination is fine if you intend on writing an autobiography or even a fictionalized version of your struggles coping with life, but is it a valid way to become qualified to write political punditry?

Are we trying to join the ranks of the fictional characters Harry Street (as played by Gregory Peck), Sal Paradise, and Raoul Duke?

Does a vast array of interesting moments qualify a person to make predictions about the restoration of the Bush Dynasty being inevitable?

Years ago when we were reading Albert Camus’ “the Rebel” for the first time, we thought we saw a passage that made the assertion that society usually disarms serious rebels by making them an integral part of the Establishment.

Waylon Jennings had one obscure song about the incongruity of being a cowboy with a briefcase. Was the song writer an uncontrollable free spirit or was he a corporate entity that owned buses and trucks and other things that made loud noises and had business obligations that couldn’t be shirked?

Does the Rolling Stones band still speak out for the pain and anguish felt by the members of the working class (aka the salt of the earth)?

JEB Bush is now being described as the Republican front runner. Do the members of the media report primary results and/or survey statistics to prove their contention or do they serve up the dramatic surge in JEB’s standings strictly on a “it’s true because we say it is true” basis?

Shouldn’t the media soon start providing images of JEB cutting brush on his Texas ranch, even if he doesn’t own one and ignore the fact that if he did he wouldn’t do the manual labor himself? Is it true that in the Thirties there were photos made available to the press showing the German leader clearing brush on his private ranch in Berchtesgaden ?

A happy-go-lucky life that takes a person to New York City in the Sixties, San Francisco later in that decade, Lake Tahoe in the Seventies, and then a long stint in Tinseltown after that is a fine way to live if you want to write a picaresque novel but shouldn’t a person who was destined to become an online blogger specializing in political punditry spend a decade writing for the New York Times Washington Bureau before launching into making fearless forecasts in the political realm?

Usually our columns are written with the intention of being stand alone items that don’t have to worry about continuity but this week we will wind up with a teaser for next week when we will explain what a vagabond’s life has to do with the inevitability of the Inauguration of JEB Bush in January of 2917. The hook for that column will be the story of how Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave us the best Valentine’s Day gift we ever got.

[If a columnist has to be his own Lacerda, he has to be ever vigilant for photo ops as for example last week when we noticed guy in camouflage pants and combat boots who was all enthusiastic about a newly acquired pair of black stiletto high heeled shoes. We took some photos of the incongruous juxtaposing of the two extreme foot styles and it turned out that we could run that shot with the column that would plug the Two Spirits Powwow to be held Saturday, February 5, 2015, at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco area.]

In the movie “Way of the Gun,” actor James Caan delivers a line that is this week’s closing quote: “ . . . the only assumption you can make about a beat-up old man is . . . he is a survivor.”

Now the disk jockey will play a medley of Waylon Jennings’ music including “He went to Paris,” “Clean Shirt,” and “I’m a ramblin’ man.” We have to go buy a lotto ticket. We hope you have an “un-f*****g-believable” type week, because that’s precisely what we intend on having for our self.

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